


The Judge

by iopeneditbeforechristmas



Series: all aboard the angst train [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, i promised bees schnees but that comes next, this is set up for EVEN MORE ANGST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:50:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iopeneditbeforechristmas/pseuds/iopeneditbeforechristmas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You're the judge, oh no</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Set me free</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In which Blake finds Weiss and makes a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Judge

**Author's Note:**

> So I did promise some Bees' Schnees, but I decided it worked better to cut this here. It's kind of like I'm writing this series as chapters of a book, but because they could theoretically stand on their own it's a series. I have a lot more planned for this though and I can't wait >:D

Somewhere in the outskirts of Atlas city, in a bar that’s less than reputable run by a proprietor who’s less than scrupulous, a girl bends over a drink. She’s young, to look at, smooth-skinned and still slightly round-faced, though regular periods of hunger have given a gaunt, sharp look. Her eyes, though, are different. Amber, and filled with wisdom and worry beyond her years.

This is only her third drink of the night, but she’s already feeling slightly buzzed. Just enough to do something stupid, maybe. She’s a formidable woman in her own right, but that doesn’t seem to extend to any kind of ability to hold her drink.

There’s some kind of ruckus going on up at the bar, a fistfight between two patrons far more practiced at drinking than Blake, but both far further gone than she is. They grapple for a few minutes, sending mugs and plates flying. She can see the bartender taking some of his more expensive bottles down from behind the bar, just in case.

He didn’t need to, in the end. There are a few punches thrown, but the owner of the bar doesn’t pay his bouncers for nothing, and soon two very large men are dragging the offenders outside. A few well-placed kicks there remind them how behaviour like that is viewed.

Blake can see ears on both the bouncers’ heads, twitching silently as the rest of the pub jeer the fighters out. Faunus, the both of them. Some kind of bear, she thinks; the glints as their hands catch the dim light seem to be reflected off something a bit stronger than nails. This is Atlas, so they’re probably kept in the job with free meals and measly wages they’ll waste on booze. They probably kip in the stables with the horses. It’s only the fitting place for animals, after all, Blake thinks bitterly.

Her ears almost twitch. She stops them with a hand, pretending she’s fixing the bow. There’s a man across the room eyeballing her, and she glares at him. He tilts his head and smirks, and there’s something in his gaze – something cold, calculating, something that tells her he _knows_ – that Blake doesn’t like.

She’s distracted from the potential threat by a conversation to her right.

“Vale’s never going to be the same, of course,” one political genius, obviously far better informed than his friends, says sagely.

“Oh, no way,” adds his friend. “There’s some of the teachers staying, I think – Port? And Goodwitch.”

There’s a general laugh from the group. “Yeah, of course _she’s_ staying; Ozpin’s little ‘secretary’ wouldn’t leave, not if there was any chance he’d come back.”

The way they say ‘secretary’ leaves it very clear what they really think. Blake feels her hand tighten around her mug, and wills herself not to do something stupid. She instead remembers that Professor Goodwitch is in fact about six and a half feet tall, and therefore is not at all _‘little’._ It made combat classes with her very intimidating, it has to be said.

“The Faunus one’s staying too, I think.”

One of the men spits onto the floor. The bartender stops mid-glass-polishing to glare at him.

“Why’s he staying then? I thought all the animals were part of the attack.”

“Nah, it was just the White Fang. Some of ‘em aren’t a part, think they’re _normal_ or something.”

“Pathetic,” the first speaker scoffs. Blake remembers Professor – no, _Doctor –_ Oobleck. Remembers how he’d grown his hair out to hide his ears, how he was the first one to actually guess what she was, before she’d let it slip in front of Weiss, and how he’d just winked at her and made a general comment to the class about Ozpin and the rest of the teachers not knowing everything. Remembers his insistence on the rest of the world calling him Doctor, even though you needed a PhD for Professor too, and how she’d eventually realised that it was important to him not because he cared how many degrees people thought he had, but because he’d probably spent years and years being told he’d never get that far.

“Wasn’t there a student too? The rabbit one?”

“There was another too, I think. I dunno, some kind of _vicious_ one, dog? Cat? I can’t believe Ozpin let them into the school.”

Blake feels the familiar ice-cold of panic begin to seep through her bones, and it takes everything she has not to run there and then. Instead, she listens. She’s been doing a lot of that lately, keeping one ear – or four – out for her friends’ names, hoping beyond hope that they’re okay, they’re keeping going. She’s heard tell of her teachers, sometimes, and some of the older students, and occasionally they’ll mention Phyrra or Penny, but the others are just an excruciating stretch of radio silence.

She knows she should go back, that her place is there, with her friends, not in some seedy Atlas pub scrounging information as best she can. But she was born to run, she thinks, it’s ingrained into her very _soul;_ her semblance, her aura, who she is, they’re all designed to help her run as fast and as far as she can.

“So what do you think about him, then?” one of the others asked the guy who started the conversation. He’s heavy-set, with greasy hair and a slight scar curving around his eye. He seems to have been unanimously and unofficially nominated as the best political commentator of the group. Blake can barely repress a sigh.

“Ozpin? He’s a bloody idiot, that’s what,” Mr Political Commentator says. “He’s probably holed up somewhere embarrassed as hell cos his stupid plan didn’t work.”

“What was he even trying to do?” says the racist one. He’s skinny and spotty, younger than the rest of them, with an Adam’s apple the size of a tennis ball bobbing up and down in his throat. “D’you think he and Ironwood were really working together?”

“Dunno,” shrugs Politics Man eloquently, “Prob’ly. Who does he think he is anyway, Ironwood? You see him on TV, saying the Vale stuff’s none of his fault, but who’s bloody is it then? He’s even defending that robot girl he tried to build. Who builds a freak like that? Bloody good thing it died, that thing would have creeped me out if I saw it.”

“Good thing you can’t see past the end of your nose then, eh Scar?” jokes the third man. This one’s the smartest one of the group, Blake can see, but it a mean smartness. He’s the kind of guy who spends his time figuring out the most efficient way of de-winging flies.

“What I wanna know,” he continues, “Is how Schnee’s reacting to all this.”

Blake stiffens, trying her hardest not to go over there and demand what the hell he knows or she’ll rip his eyes out. That kind of thing never goes down well.

“Hah, idiot’s staying out of the papers, I think. His kid was involved pretty heavily in the Vale stuff, he took her back almost immediately it went down. Don’t think she’s in school anymore, I think she’s just staying at home. Haven’t seen her around anyway.”

“Wasn’t she on the same team as that freak who broke that boy’s leg?”

Deep breaths, Blake tells herself, deep breaths.

“Yeah, that’s her.” Scar says. “Think they had a Faunus on it too, I saw ‘em at the Vytal festival.”

The skinny one snorts. “It’s a good thing Beacon’s fallen, at this rate they’d have started letting in animals.”

“Well from the looks of things they already do,” the smart one sniggers. He probably thinks he’s really smart. Blake can feel the itch to teach him a lesson, because she’s so _angry,_ so pissed off that the best thing that’s ever happened to her’s been taken away and now these _bastards_ sitting snug in their Atlas bar think they can joke about and call Yang a _freak_ and Blake’s just so _angry._ She wants to fight. But instead, she does what she’s always done.

She runs.

She stands up and heads over to the bar, dropping a couple of coins on the grimy surface and then she’s gone, fleeing into the night. Except this time, she’s running towards someone, and not away.

* * *

 

Blake sometimes forgets how small Vale really is. She’s lived there for most of her life, scrounging what little she could from the streets, learning the layout of the city like the back of her hand. At first it was just her, alone and friendless, but then Adam arrived, and things started to look up. Vale started to seem like a home. Of course, they began travelling more once Adam moved up in the White Fang, Blake moving up with him, and the sense of belonging that had come with the more peaceful members of Vale section of the White Fang began to collapse.

But Vale was still home, in some weird, fundamental sense of the word, and once she moved back to Beacon Blake began to realise why. It’s _friendly._ Small and cramped, too many people shoved into an area that had been optimal for a population centuries old, but also warm and welcoming and homely. She misses it, now that she’s left.

Atlas, on the other hand, is very, very different.

Weiss, when she first arrived in Vale, was extremely derogatory about a lot of things. The noise, the smell, the Faunus ‘running wild’ in the streets, but – and this was what Blake found odd – the worst thing was apparently the size. Nothing to do, nowhere to go; you could walk around the entire perimeter in a day.

Now, Blake’s beginning to understand more. Atlas is _massive._ She supposes it only makes sense that Remnant’s resident city of innovation is adapting by the second itself; Vale’s always been more cultural. Cosier. But it was still a shock to see so many people when she first fled there, and the weeks that have passed haven’t changed anything. She still has to stop herself from shying away from the hustle and bustle in the city. As a Faunus, and a cat one at that, her senses are far stronger than that of the average human, and cities such as Atlas are immediate sensory over-stimulation for someone who, in a place like Vale, can smell a rat a mile away.

In a place like Atlas, Blake probably couldn’t smell a rat ten centimetres away.

She tries to ignore how depressing this is, and how much it’s messing with her head and thinks. The problem is, anyone could be following her; she needs to stop being paranoid, because why would they, but that just change the fact that they _could._ Besides, she hasn’t changed out of her usual clothes. She doesn’t want to – they feel homely and are the only thing that’s been able to even slightly ease the knot that’s been in her stomach ever since she ran away from Yang. But there’s no denying that in strict, severe Atlas, a girl with a cat bow on her head is going to look slightly out of place. And given the paranoia that’s been going around lately, what with the White Fang’s involvement in the Battle of Beacon, and the natural Atlas distrust for anything with less than the normal amount of ears, eyes, fur or tails, a cat bow is not the best thing to be wearing.

Blake decides to buy a hood. It wasn’t necessary before, when all she’d been doing was pickpocketing the already poor on the outskirts, where only pickpocketing someone was almost a gift (even in Atlas, apparently, there are scumbags), but now she’s strolling as casually as she can through the main street, where people like General Ironwood and Mr Schnee walk on a daily basis.

A hood is probably a good idea. Or at least a hat.

She ends up buying a black hooded jacket from a pleasant old lady on a side street. It’s expensive, as jackets go, and it’s not like Blake’s feeling particularly rich at the moment, but she doesn’t care; Weiss is here, she’s _here,_ and maybe Blake messed up with Yang but at least if she finds Weiss she’ll be able to find out how they’re all doing; Yang and Ruby and Sun and Neptune and everyone else as well.

The first step, of course, is to find out where the Schnees actually _live._ All her skulking in bars and low-end pubs has made Blake feel incredibly stealthy – and she is, of course, extremely stealthy – but there’s a different between blending in to the shadows and being able to find out information. Weiss would probably be a lot better at something like that.

Blake can remember the White Fang talking about a potential raid on the Schnee house once, years ago, and from what she can remember it was somewhere in the centre of town, but she doesn’t think the raid ever actually went ahead, and back then she wasn’t included much in any big plans anyway.

The best way would be to just _ask_ someone, but Blake’s tired, filthy, her hair’s a mess and there’re massive bags under her eyes. The hood only furthers the whole delinquent thing she’s got going on, but if she takes it off you’ve got someone with a cat bow on her head asking the way to the Schnees’ house, and that looks even worse.

Maybe it’ll be on a map. Or maybe if she asks someone somewhere less fancy they’ll be more inclined to tell her. She makes her way there, then, weaving through tiny alleyways and dingy little side streets until she’s somewhere that doesn’t make her feel like chewing gum stuck to one of Atlas’s ridiculously clean pavements.

Blake stops to take in the situation. She pulls the hood off; there’s no need for it out here. She hasn’t been stopped yet. The jacket’s nice though. Warm. She pulls it closer around her as a particularly harsh gust of wind knifes through her ribs.

She takes a step forward, thinking she’ll scout out the area and see if she can find someone to ask, but ends up crashing into what feels like a wall of rock. A hand, faster than she’d have thought possible, grabs her and forces her head up.

The face she’s looking into is tough, weathered, with nut-brown skin and a menacing glint to its eyes.

Blake looks into those eyes and says, very firmly, “Let go of me.”

“Really?” says the wall of rock. “That’s what I’m gonna do, is it? Tell you what, little lady, you’re a pretty thing. You give me what I want and then we’ll talk about letting you go. Sound fair?”

“Not at all,” Blake replies. And then she’s moving, twisting out of the man’s grip and somersaulting backwards. He’s fast though, faster than she’d have thought, and punches her with lightning speed.

Unluckily for him, Blake’s fastest.

She ducks out of the way, weaving around the blows like it’s nothing, reaching a hand down for Gambol Shroud…which isn’t there. Blake frowns, loses concentration, and she’s hit with the force of several elephants at once. It sends her flying; she slams into a wall, slumping down. Her head’s spinning. Her ribs feel broken. She’s shaking. Why is she shaking? She’s not _scared_ of this guy, he’s nothing, _nothing,_ Blake’s taken down Grimm, Torchwick, some of the best fighters in Atlas’s school, and what’s he? Just a no-good nobody from the back streets of Atlas. Blake was in the White Fang, she’s taken on the _Schnees_ and laughed, and hell if this guy’ll ever even see a Schnee, and he’s got no chance because now Blake’s angry…but the reason Blake’s angry is because he really, definitely, has a very large chance. She’s tired and hungry and cold, and she seems to have lost her weapon and she’s never been the strongest fighter, she’s fast and sneaky instead, but there’s no help in being fast and sneaky when you’re slumped against a wall and some guy the size of a rock is leering over you.

“Looking for something?” he says, dangling Gambol Shroud over her lap. “Fancy sort of weapon for a little thing like you, isn’t it? Who’d you steal it from, eh?”

“Didn’t…steal…it,” Blake manages, trying to push herself up. Spikes of pain shoot through her ribs and she stops, gasping.

“Yeah, and I’m Mr bloody Schnee,” he grunts. “Now, we seem to have gotten off to a bit of a rocky start, so I’ll introduce myself. Hey, darling, I’m Arrow. Who are you?”

“Go to hell,” Blake wheezes. That was not the correct answer. Arrow responds with a blow that has her seeing stars. When she comes too he’s squatting in front of her, one hand on her shoulder.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he pouts. “You know what is, though? That pretty little bow on your head. Bit unnecessary though, isn’t it? Why don’t you take it off?”

“I like it,” she says shortly. Arrow laughs.

“Well, that’s all very well, I like things too. But sometimes, _sometimes,_ we’ve just gotta let go, don’t we? So why don’t you take off that bow, eh, miss?”

“No.”

“Fine.”

Arrow reaches up to her ears. Blake doesn’t even try to stop him; at this point it’s hopeless. She’s beaten. He pulls, none too gently, and she sucks the pain in through her teeth. Arrow laughs when he sees her ears, small and insignificant against her mane of hair, but it’s not a nice laugh. Blake can feel her heart beating very hard against her chest. And all this because she heard some idiot in a bar mention Weiss and Yang.

“Well, lookee here,” Arrow says softly. “A Faunus. You know, we’re none too fond of Faunus around here. They’re a bit…well, you wouldn’t want them round the kids, would you? And you can get a tidy bit of money for turning them in.”

“You know,” Blake says through gritted teeth. “I don’t think we’re actually illegal.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t really care what you think, then, isn’t it? And luckily for me, neither do the local law enforcement. Now, here’s what’s going to happy, kitty-cat. I’m going to take you to the nearest station. You’re not going to fight. I’m going to turn you in, get my money, and then I’m not gonna care what the hell happens to you. Clear?”

Blake nods. She’s too tired to think of another option.

And then Arrow’s head explodes, spraying her with blood and brains.

Blake grimaces, because that’s the immediate reaction to having someone’s cervical matter decorate your face. Then she frowns, because _what. The. Hell. Just happened._

“I’m sorry about that,” says a voice. Smooth, strong. It’s used to giving orders, this voice. “We’ve tried cracking down on people like this, but unfortunately there _is_ a monetary award for the apprehension of dangerous criminals by civilians, and the police aren’t that fussy about the crime when it comes to Faunus.”

Blake looks up, trying to locate the speaker through the haze in her head. Her gaze eventually lands on someone extremely tall. She frowns.

“General Ironwood?”

“You know who I am?” Ironwood asks, surprised. “I had the impression you weren’t from around here.”

“I…I remember seeing you. At the Vytal festival. You came to Beacon.”

“You’re from Beacon?”

Blake nods.

“I’m sorry,” says Ironwood, voice full of sympathy. He scrutinises Blake a little closer, before recognition floods his features. “I remember you. You’re…it’s Miss Belladonna, right?”

Blake nods again.

“I’m sorry,” Ironwood repeats. “What are you doing in Atlas? I would have thought you’d be helping with the reconstruction effort back at Vale. I know Glynda’s heading up groups of old students who want to help.”

“I…” Blake stops. What can she say? She ran away because one of her best friends lost her arm and it’s all Blake’s fault? That if she stays near Yang Adam will find her and kill both of them? That she heard Ruby’s scream and saw the light and it scared her so much because if that’s what happened when one of her friends dies, what’s she going to do when she finds out _Blake_ is the reason her sister’s never going to be able to fight properly again?

“I was looking for Weiss,” she says lamely.

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t imagine her father being particularly pleased to see you,” Ironwood tells her. “But if you’d like I can point you to her house.”

“Uh, yes, please,” Blake nods, picking up Gambol Shroud and groping around for her bow. She ties it up, feeling the familiar twinges of protest from ears that would much rather be free to wiggle around, _thank_ you very much.

Ironwood offers her a hand up. Blake accepts it, groaning as her ribs – which are probably okay, and she’s just winded – protest. The weirdness of the situation hits her then, the absolute oddity it is that Atlas’s foremost military general just happened to be strolling through the slums Atlas tries to hide, blew out the brains of a common criminal and is now giving Blake a helpful hand up.

“Uh, Sir? What exactly are you doing here?”

“I was looking for someone. There’s been a series of weapons heists in Atlas lately and I’d been given a tip-off that the culprit was in a warehouse somewhere nearby.”

“Oh,” says Blake. “I’m sorry. For messing up your search.”

“Don’t worry about it. I had reason to doubt the veracity of the statement in the first place.”

He starts walking after that, Blake trotting behind to keep up. She stays slightly curled around her aching ribs. Ironwood walks fast, and by the time he stops at a large white-painted house on a wide, well-lit street, Blake’s biting her lip to stop from whimpering at every step she takes.

“There,” Ironwood says. “I can’t promise they will agree to see you, but you might as well try. I would stay, but I have an urgent meeting. Good luck, Miss Belladonna.”

“Oh. Uh, thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome.”

And then Ironwood’s gone, swallowed into the darkness. Blake watches him go and tries to stop herself from crying. He’s right. She’s covered in dirt and bruises, heavily armed, almost as skinny as she’s ever been. The only thing to stop her from looking like she’s never even stepped inside a house is the jacket, and they’ll probably just think she’s stolen that.

But there’s no point giving up now, not when she’s finally here. Blake steels herself, grits her teeth, and walks up the steps to the Schnee residence.

She takes a deep breath before knocking on the door, going over some possibly opening lines in her head. If Weiss opened the door everything would be so much easier, but it’s the Schnees so _obviously_ they’re going to have a butler, and posh butlers tend to be really snobby, so Blake might as well just give up now and save herself the trouble…but that’s no way to go about things. She might as well try. At least then there’s the possibility that Weiss will ask who it was and they’ll give her a description or something – if they mention anything about a bow Weiss will know who it is. She’ll have to.

Blake knocks on the door. It’s opened by a short man in a smart black and white suit. He looks Blake up and down with disdain, not even bothering to say anything before going to slam the door.

She reacts instinctively, shoving a foot between the door and the jamb and looking straight into the butler’s face.

“Please,” she says, “I have to speak to Weiss. Uh, I mean, Miss Schnee. It’s important!”

The butler draws himself up to his full height – which isn’t much, but the effort is impressive.

“And I dine regularly with her father,” he sneers. “We don’t cater to the likes of you here. Go on, scram!”

“Please!” Blake begs, and hates herself for how thin and reedy her voice sounds, how weak she’s become. Even after she left Adam she’d never had to stoop this low, pleading with stuck-up servants to let herself into posh houses she’d have spat on even a year before.

But it’s for Weiss, she reminds herself.

But no matter how much she needs this, the world seems just determined to grind her even further into the dirt. She watches the great black door close in her face as a distant voice asks, ‘who was that, Rutherford?’ When it closes, she can see her face reflected perfectly in the letterbox. She’s on the verge of tears.

Blake wipes her eyes angrily, squaring her shoulders and turning away. Weiss might not have even been there, she thinks. Maybe she was away or something, and that’s why she didn’t come and save Blake. Though it’s laughable that Blake would even think she’s worth saving; look what she did to Yang, look how she couldn’t even save the people most important to her, look how she always, _always_ runs.

She’s walking back down the street, hood up, hands shoved in her pockets, when she hears someone else running behind her.

“Blake!” she hears, and she _knows_ that voice, she’s missed it like a hole inside her ever since she left…

Blake whips around just in time to catch a tornado of white ruffles and lace and ponytail in her arms.

“Weiss,” she whispers.

“Blake!” Weiss says again, but this time there’s a reproachful edge to her voice. Blake puts her down. Weiss’s hand connects with her face.

There’s a moment suspended in time, Blake staring down at her friend, who’s glaring at her and biting her lip at the same time and looking for all the world like she’s going to start crying.

“Blake Belladonna don’t you ever run away like that again, you hear me! I did _not_ spend a year with you overcoming your antisocial attitude and my racial prejudices for you to run off just when we need you most! Now, you’re coming right back to my house with me and you are going to have a bath and I’ll get someone to look at why you winced when I hugged you and you will eat enough so that I can’t feel your ribs even through that jacket and then you’ll sleep long enough to get rid of those bags under your eyes and in the morning you’ll wake up and _then_ we will talk. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Blake says, because there isn’t really much else to say in the situation, not when your tiny best friend is still very much at risk of slapping you again. She’d deserve that next one too.

“Good!” Weiss says, straightening up and smiling again, like Blake’s used to. “Now that’s sorted out, why don’t you come inside. You’re just lucky Father’s not home. At least now we’ll have the evening to get you ready and figure out what we’ll do with you.”

Blake follows her wordlessly back to the house, Weiss giving Rutherford the butler the iciest glare she can muster. Blake’s been on the end of a fair few of those and can’t resist a little grin of triumph at the complete shock registering on Rutherford’s face.

“Rutherford, this is my _friend,_ Blake,” Weiss says, careful to stress the friend. “She’s going to be staying for the foreseeable future. Please take her jacket and have Carmen run her a bath. There will be no need to tell Mr Schnee.”

Blake doesn’t miss the way Weiss refers to her father as ‘Mr Schnee’, and feels her heart going out to the heiress standing before her, a taut bowstring of perfection and intensity built up by years and years of endless pressure, the knowledge that she has no choice, that there she can be nothing other than perfect, ever. There is no room for relaxation in the Schnee household. There cannot be a hair out of place. Blake’s beginning to understand just why Weiss is so uptight.

Inside the Schnee house is just as impressive as the outside; the hallway is paved in glistening marble, a staircase as wide as a double bed snaking upwards. The furnishings are surprisingly sparse, with only a white table in one corner, a mirror above it. Paintings of old, and moustached Schnee ancestors line the white walls.

“Well,” Weiss says ruefully. “I had intended to invite you to my house at a more…auspicious time, but welcome in, I guess.”

“Uh,” says Blake, because she can’t actually say anything else. It’s so _big._ So clean and shiny. Weiss laughs.

“Come on. I’ll take you upstairs. Carmen should have got your bath ready. You can have a shower, if you prefer? But I like baths.”

Blake hides a smile; immediately taking charge, organising everything. Typical Weiss. She allows herself to be dragged upstairs, wincing a little as her boots leave heavy black imprints on the white carpet. She had a friend once, Fern, a deer, who worked in a rich house like Weiss’s. Apparently white carpet was the hardest to keep clean.

“Don’t worry about the carpet,” Weiss says. “I mean, someone will have to clean it so there’s that, but it’s for now. I didn’t think you’d like to give up your boots, or your jacket.”

“No,” Blake agrees. “Thanks, Weiss.”

“Oh,” says Weiss. She seems surprised. Blake can’t think why a thank you should surprise her, but it does. That’s a little depressing, and probably a sign to say thank you more. “You’re welcome, Blake.”

It’s the first time Blake’s heard her name said like that since she left; not angry, not disdainful, not spat out by someone up to date with the goings-on in Vale and the students involved. She starts to tear up in the middle of the staircase.

“Oh, _Blake,”_ Weiss whispers, and then she’s pulling her into a hug. Blake leans her chin on Weiss’s shoulder and lets herself cry, lets everything out, all the misery and pain and guilt that’s formed a tight knot in her stomach. She’s grubby, caked in dirt and blood, smelling like a three days dead rat, her hair resembling a mane now more than it ever has, but Weiss doesn’t seem to care. She just holds Blake, patting her gently and murmuring soothing nonsense into her ear. Blake sobs even harder, clutching Weiss with everything she has because she left, dammit, she left _this,_ when she _promised,_ and she’s never going to leave it again.

When they pull apart Blake’s eyes are puffy and red and Weiss’s dress is significantly greyer than it was two minutes ago, but neither of them care. Blake lets Weiss lead her to a bathroom that glimmers more than Blake thought was actually possible, lets herself be helped into a tub brimming with suds, lets her herself relax.

Afterwards she’s led into a room where the carpet is so thick her feet sink until the tops are barely visible. Beacon was impressive, to a Faunus raised on the streets and White Fang charity, but Blake realises now that she barely even scratched the surface of luxury during her stay. The room she’s in is one of at least five _spare_ rooms alone in Weiss’s house, which Blake has learned is only the Schnees’ primary residence; they’ve two more in varying countryside locations, so that whenever they get tired of ridiculous opulence in the city they can enjoy it in fresh air and delectable seaside or mountain views. It has the same white colour scheme, but the accents are purple – Weiss thought Blake would like the Purple Room best. The rooms even have _names._

Blake likes to think she is, for a Faunus, cultured. She isn’t one to be taken aback by excessive displays of grandeur, or thrown by the decadence of the rich. But strictly speaking that’s all from an outside point of view; to actually be _there,_ to see all there is behind closed sparkling doors, is just the tiniest bit overwhelming.

She sits on the bed, dressed in a pair of black silk pyjamas Weiss had fished out of a pile of lingerie alone almost as tall as herself, slightly in shock. It’s so large her toes only just touch the ground – and while Blake is not strictly speaking _tall,_ she isn’t short either. She wants to think about everything that’s happened, how Weiss will ask about why Blake left, of course she will, and by now she’ll have heard from Yang what happened with Adam too, and what on earth could Blake possibly say to make up for everything she’s done?

Weiss enters just as Blake goes over yet another way to phrase everything, and looks her up and down. Even wrapped up in a very fluffy dressing gown and wearing the wolf slippers Ruby got her as a present, she looks as dignified as ever. Blake is suddenly very conscious of her own sopping mass of hair and the pyjamas that are slightly too short at the wrist and ankle.

“So,” Weiss says, fixing Blake with the kind of glare that, coming from Weiss, means _business._ “Where have you been?”

Blake pulls her knees up to her chest. She doesn’t dare look at Weiss.

“I…I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I ran.”

“I’m aware,” Weiss says drily. She looks at Blake again, her stare softening just a little. “Look, Blake. I’m only angry because I care about you.”

This time, Blake does meet Weiss’s eyes, and mutters, “You’re still angry.”

It makes her sound like a kid, petulant and pissed off because Mummy wouldn’t let her play outside any longer.

“Oh come on!” complains Weiss. Her voice has the slightly stroppy edge it only gets when she isn’t _really_ angry, just kind of annoyed. Though an only-kind-of-annoyed Weiss is still a Weiss above happy, and not to be taken lightly. “I’m _allowed_ to be angry with you! You ran away! Blake, you _promised._ You said that if you ever had a problem you’d come to one of us to talk about it, not disappear off into the night or whatever else kind of mysterious Blake stuff you did this time.”

“But this is different!” Blake protests. “This wasn’t my problem, it wasn’t something I’d caused for myself, it was Yang’s! It was something I’d done to someone else, it was something I’d done that had real _,_ serious consequences for someone else! It was my fault Yang’s-”

“No. You stop right there, Blake Belladonna. You do not get to blame yourself for this.”

“But it’s my fault! I wasn’t strong enough, I led her to Adam, I couldn’t stop him from…from doing what he did.”

“No. No, it isn’t your fault. That’s just what Adam wants you to think. He would have found some way to get back at you no matter what; no matter who had been there. Besides, Blake…we’re _seventeen._ We aren’t supposed to be able to go up against people like that yet! We’re just…we’re just not! We’re not kids anymore, I know that, but we’re still young. We’ve had less than a year of training to be proper huntresses, and I know we have to step up and do what needs to be done, but we can’t do _everything._ ”

“Yang lost a hand, Weiss. We’re supposed to be able to stop things that like that from happening; we’re supposed to protect people!”

“Well in all fairness, Blake, we’re trained to fight Grimm, not psychopathic ex-mentors. And Yang’s a huntress just as much as we are. She can look after herself.”

“But-”

“No, Blake. I don’t want to hear you talk about this anymore, okay? Yes, what happened to Yang was awful. No, you shouldn’t blame yourself. She wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want you to mope when there’s so much more we need to do.”

“So what have you been doing, then?” Blake says softly. She knows as soon as she does that she shouldn’t have said that, but Weiss has been acting like Blake’s being an idiot for reacting like this, like it’s all in her _head,_ and for a second she feels some small, vindictive pleasure at the look of guilt on Weiss’s face. It disappears almost immediately, though. Blake’s looking at everything she’s been feeling since the battle reflected onto one of her best friend’s faces, and no one deserves to look like that.

“I…I’ve been busy,” manages Weiss. “I thought I might go back home for a while. Support Father. It’s not easy, you know, keeping everything in Atlas running smoothly after this.”

She’s so fragile, Blake thinks. Ice over glass. There’s warmth there too, of course there is, Blake’s seen it, but it’s a small, flickering flame, and a fire like that is all too easy to extinguish.

“I’m sorry,” Blake whispers. “I…I know you didn’t want to. I know you’d have stayed if you could.”

Weiss doesn’t say anything, merely looking down and biting her lip. The expression sends shards of guilt through Blake’s heart. It settles in her stomach, piling on top of all the anguish that’s starting to knot up again, now that the initial glow of finding Weiss again is starting to settle. Bile starts to rise in her throat.

“I know how hard it is to leave,” she adds, swallowing down everything else, and Weiss looks up. There’s something in her eyes, something Blake’s never seen before, and she thinks maybe they should’ve talked about Mr Schnee before this, about what he’s done to his family, about how hard it must be to find someone else who understands. Maybe Weiss’s sister, but there’s family and then there’s friends, and if they don’t understand it’s like all your problems are so much more insignificant, and what’s been worrying you sick almost your entire life doesn’t matter.

Ruby and Yang wouldn’t get it, Blake thinks. Not for want of trying, because they’d made a valiant attempt when Blake had told them everything about Adam and the White Fang, but for them it just hadn’t clicked. Back then the only person who’d managed to really feel what Blake did had been Sun, and even he hadn’t completely succeeded.

Maybe now Blake needs to do the same for Weiss.

She ignores the small voice in her head that points out how everything that went wrong in Weiss’s family life stems almost completely from the White Fang, how therefore this is indirectly Blake’s fault too. She ignores how there are parts of her that still say she doesn’t deserve this, that she’ll just end up hurting Weiss too, that she should just run while she has the chance. Voices like that don’t matter anymore.

Blake’s made up her mind. She promised. She’s not going to run again.

**Author's Note:**

> reminder that if you ever want to scream about rwby just hit me up on tumblr at[phyrradise text](http://phyrradise.tumblr.com/) and yes, I know that's technically spelt wrong.


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